by Anna Esty

Speaking Spanish

My Spanish isn?t terrific, but I loved attempting to speak it in Nicaragua. I can have the most mundane conversations (?Hey, how?s it going?? ?Okay, and you?? ?Eh, fine. It?s hot out.? ?Yeah, it is.?) and yet simply because it?s in another language, it feels like an intense, intellectual discussion. I guess that must mean my brain is working too hard coming up with the right words to use. In any case, because I loved being able to use what little Spanish I know, I tried to speak to people as much as I could.

This is one woman whom I talked to in Granada, at our library ?presentations? to other librarians and teachers. I couldn?t understand her full name after she told me probably two or three times, so she told me to call her Isa. You can see that she has a broken right arm, but don?t let that fool you. This woman is full of energy. I felt bad for her having a broken arm, since I know what that?s like, so I told her at the beginning to let me know if she needed any help. Well, that was my first mistake. She soon had me creating the flower craft for her, even those parts that she could do fine with one hand. She also had me make the journal notebooks for her. I had a great time doing it, especially since I love doing crafts. Besides having me create the crafts for her, she also took an extra supply of craft materials for each activity. I just thought maybe she wanted to try the crafts herself when her arm healed until I found out that she was a librarian at two different libraries, so she wanted to be able to bring the crafts back to each library.

I asked her how she broke her arm, and it turned out she had been riding her bike and her brakes didn?t work. It was so ironic, because one of the storyboards Mario had created was a story of a woman who ends up having an accident on her bike because the brakes don?t work! I could definitely see Isa as the subject of a story?she has that kind of personality. One of the men, Arturo, drew a picture of her near the end of the session, and she had a hard time sitting still for it. He had to keep telling her to stop moving. Now I can see why she works at two different libraries?she must be the only one who has enough energy to do it!

Playing soccer

I love playing soccer. I know that Nicaraguans in general prefer baseball, unlike most Central American countries where soccer is number one. I got the chance to play soccer twice while I was in Nicaragua.

After we were done with The Hungry Caterpillar crafts and kids had had some time to look at the books available for them to take out from the big bins from the library, a bunch of us divided up into teams and took the soccer ball out into the road. It was GSLIS and a few Nicaraguan girls against the boys. We didn?t have a lot of skill, but we had heart. I don?t remember who won now, but I?d like to think we did. There were a number of times that the ball rolled underneath the barbed wire fence on one side of the road, so it was fortunate that we were playing with little kids, because they were small enough to slip underneath and retrieve it. One game got interrupted by a group of cattle coming down the road. The cattle there are much skinnier and often one or more of them will have a large stick attached to a rope around its head and reaching almost to the ground. I?m still not sure exactly what the purpose of the stick was. I thought at first that it was supposed to indicate the ?lead? cow who would guide the others, but I don?t think cows have any really concept of ?leading.? I think they?re just made to follow. The ones with the sticks didn?t seem to do any better at facilitating the movement of the group than the others. But fortunately there were people on horses following who did the herding.

The night we returned to San Juan del Sur, a bunch of us walked down to the beach to enjoy the sunset. I stayed behind on the wall separating the sidewalk from the beach, wanting just to sit awhile and look. There were a bunch of guys playing soccer down on the beach, and I really wanted to join them, but I didn?t know if it would be okay for me to do that, especially since co-ed soccer groups seems to be much more of a U.S. thing, so I just sat and watched them instead. The next night, while talking to Noelia, a young woman who helps out at the San Juan del Sur Biblioteca, I mentioned that I wish I could have joined the group playing soccer, and I asked her if it would have been okay for me to do that. She said sure, of course I could have joined them! Well, that was reassuring, even thought I figured by then I?d lost my chance to play. The next evening, though, Laura and Mary and I went down to the beach for a swim. While I was in the water, I started eyeing a group of guys playing soccer further down the beach. When we got out of the water, I put my shirt and shorts and sneakers on and decided to join them. Mary and Laura went back to the hotel, and I headed over. I wasn?t exactly sure how to join them since I kind of felt as though I would be imposing on them, but fortunately, a ball happened to roll over my way and a guy came running to get it. I headed towards him and said, ?Puedo jugar con ustedes? (Can I play with you guys?)? He said sure, so I joined in. Nobody seemed to give my presence much thought, so maybe it?s not unusual for tourists to join in the games? I was definitely rusty from not playing much, but I did get one or two good runs in there. The guys were nice, so I got enough touches on the ball even though it was a large group. The only problem was, there was no way to distinguish who was on my team from who wasn?t, so when I got the ball, I didn?t know who to pass to. I stood there and said, ?Quien? Quien? (Who? Who?)? But it all seemed to work out okay anyways. The guys seem like the groups I play with back in Massachusetts and Vermont?they play until it gets too dark to actually see the ball. Unfortunately, I?d joined late, after the sun had already sunk below the horizon, though it was still light enough to see. But the group only played for probably another half an hour after I joined them before it was too dark and we split up. I thanked them and headed on my way back to the hotel, a short walk up the street.

Homeless Kids

We were just talking about libraries and homeless people today in my LIS422 Literacy and Underserved Populations class, so I guess that?s on my mind when I think back to our time in Nicaragua. There were a few kids who hung around outside the window of Tip Top Chicken, the fast food place we ate lunch at in Granada and then followed us back to the hotel afterwards and took part in the singing and story time.

That?s the only time I really identified any kids in Nicaragua at the library as homeless, though for all I know, there could have been homeless kids at the big library celebration we held in Ometepe, when we had so many kids at the library that there was not enough space to hold them all. Children and mothers holding babies overflowed from the porch out onto the street to watch Mario?s storyboard, his singing, and the children dancing. Afterwards, children swarmed everywhere as some of them took turns swinging at the giant Winnie-the-Pooh pi?ata. Obviously the informality of the event meant there was no need to identify who came from where: everybody was welcome.

The reading rinc?n (corner) at Hotel Con Coraz?n seems like a good option for homeless kids, also. It?s a safe place where they can go to be off the streets. I don?t remember that they mentioned any rules about being accompanied by adults. It?s an interesting contrast to our class discussion today, in which it was mentioned that in many libraries, children under a certain age (often 7 or so) need to be accompanied by an adult (so as to, I assume, 1: avoid the library being used as a daycare center and 2: ensure the safety of the child). At the reading corner and the San Juan del Sur Biblioteca, there was definitely the expectation that kids would come to the library by themselves (or with older kids). Perhaps in some ways these kids might be more vulnerable, but I also think perhaps kids grow up faster there? Maybe it?s a huge generalization to say this, but from the interactions I had with the young women who worked or helped out with the libraries there, I would not have been surprised if they were my age (26), but the three that I?m thinking of were 18, 18, and 20. They behaved with a maturity that I don?t think we really expect of an 18 or 20 year old in the U.S. In any case, I was impressed.

Food in Nicaragu

Let me start off by thanking whichever volunteer it was on a previous trip who had complained to Jane that there was not enough protein in the meals. As a consequence, Jane made sure we had meat at each meal, and I think I ate my protein fill for the next month while I was there. Seriously, I?m glad, because I had so much good food while I was there, and I think I ate as much seafood in that one week as I?d ever eaten combined the previous 26 years of my life.

My absolute favorite meal was the chicken soup on Isla de Ometepe.

This picture really doesn?t do it justice. You can see that the bowl is fairly large. Okay, well, that?s about all you can get out of it here. It had big pieces of chicken in it and lots of vegetables. As you can see, the broth was a little different from what I?m used to in chicken soup. It was more orangey. I don?t know why, but maybe that?s what made it so good. It was the epitome of comfort. It felt so warm and soothing and wholesome to eat.

I had some good beef steak churascos while I was there, one of which is probably tied for second favorite meal with this dish, which I had for lunch at a restaurant in San Juan del Sur.? I forget exactly what was in it, but I?m thinking some kind of fish. The salsa-looking stuff on top was exactly that?some kind of salsa. I remember being a little surprised by the taste, in a good way.

Ceviche. I?d never had ceviche before this trip, and I may never have it again, but I definitely made good on the opportunity while I was there. There was extremely fresh ceviche one night at Ometepe that was the best I had while there?lots of lime. Too bad I don?t have a picture! But at dinner the last night, we had ceviche for an appetizer. I started off with this:?But didn?t like the taste as much as Alissa did, so I switched with her for this ceviche (shrimp): And then also ended up polishing off Irina?s ceviche as well!:?
As if that was not enough seafood, Irina and I shared breaded octopus and shrimp for dinner.?And let?s not forget Mike and his fabulous chocolate-chip banana pancakes at Hotel Villa Isabella:


Whenever I didn?t have those for breakfast, I had gallo pinto. Along with a full quota of meat for the week, I also ate tons of rice and beans and tons of plantains. And Sergio bought two big bagfuls of mangoes at the market in Granada. I think I only managed to polish off 5 or 6 of them in the end. But fresh fruit?so good!?